Please follow the link to view Ana’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyo9eyXTir8 A Message from Ana: If you are being abused or have been abused, please seek help. Never give up hope. I love you and you matter. RAINN.ORG is a good source

My name is Joanne. For five years I have been victim of domestic violence. He tried many times to choke me. He said hurtful things like after him noone would ever want to be with me. But for five years

the kid who at the time would be my best friend, later my boyfriend, and soon after my abuser. Freshman year, After a breakup with his first girlfriend I found myself talking to him alot more than i had in

We talk in English class about the concept of “Perception vs. Reality” and how literature demonstrates this universal truth. I wonder if anybody knows anyone at all as I think back to the word “Ethical” printed in the yearbook

I was 14, going into Sophomore year. He was 17 and a senior with a cool car, a perfect transcript, and a sports and voice state title. He was smooth talking and charming and sweet and cute and polite and

I never thought rape would happen to me, I always saw rape stories on tv or the Internet. Most of them would be of guy raped girl, or stranger raped unconscious being. It was always someone they didn’t know or

I thought- he reduced me to thinking- that I was nothing more than a used person, and no one will want me again. I was willing to do anything to get back together, because I knew that I will be alone for the rest of my life. I felt like a broken piece of trash no one will even look at.

I remember sitting in the shower, and not being able to cry, I was so in shock over what had happened. It didn’t even occur to me right away what that was. I just wanted to keep showering. I wanted the water to be hot enough that it would wash my skin off, so I could be someone else. I envisioned my skin washing off like paint and running down the drain, I wanted to be someone else. Someone who could never ever be in that position. I wanted to be someone who could remember what happened.

Here I am at 2 in the morning struggling to find rest. Tears escaping my eyes and making their way down my cheeks. All the while I am thinking I bet he is sleeping soundly like a child. This irritates me to no end. I decide to get up and write this because I cant think of any other way to get this pain and feeling of violation out of my head and entire being.

You have to fight to find yourself again, or you get pulled under by the grief, the fear, the guilt and all the rest of it. You have to find some kind of silver lining, however small, and pull yourself back up. As long as you pick yourself back up each time it overwhelms you, you are winning. It's ok to be overwhelmed sometimes, to need help; just keep getting back up!

The only thing colder than the temperature outside was the look in his eyes as he saw through who I was into what I was going to be for him. I knew what he had planned when our path skewed away from the gate to the tables. I tried to tell him I needed to go home and that it was too cold "maybe another time". Without a word I was bent over, facing away from him. With a fist full of my hair in one hand he brought his other down on me as if I had committed a crime worth being punished for.

September 1997 “Man, she’s through!” “I can’t get my d*ck in her for sh*t!” “We doing this jungle style!” “I don’t need my d*ck sucked tonight.” “Hold her leg!” Dialogue of the rapists – I was extremely intoxicated with some

He was my boyfriend. We had a lot of sex—but usually at his parents’ because mine forbade us to in their house. I’d invited him over and since we weren’t allowed in my bedroom, we decided to watch a movie

I spent a good hour just standing there, not thinking about a damn thing. I remember checking myself. I felt myself down there, and I felt wrong. I was disgusted in myself. How could I let him do that to me?

But when it actually happened… I froze. I was afraid to move. I wish so badly that I could go back in time and tell that guy to get the hell out of my room. Why didn't l do something? I hate myself for it still.

I had to go work that morning, and I left feeling numb. I couldn’t even think. How was I supposed to think? That whole day was filled with shock and sickness. The day after that I realized what happened, I was drugged and raped by someone I thought I could trust.

I was closest to my Grandmother. We didn’t talk much, but I never felt the need to always talk with her. I was comfortable with her, and thinking back now I think she was the only person I was truly comfortable with. I trusted her. It was my Grandmother who realized something else was going on. I was pregnant. I may, or may not have fallen down the stairs, but one thing is for sure. I was raped. We didn’t discuss it.

The commonalities I have with the other brave women who have come forward are what made me realize how wrong it all was. Reading the stories was like having my mind read. I sunk deeper with feelings of guilt and disgust. I was part of an intricate web woven by a man who was manipulative and powerful. I fell for every carefully constructed, tried and true line he fed me. He played his game with me as he played it with so many women before me. I was another woman to add to his collection.

The next day I left to my own city and got a rape kit done. The clinician there informed me that because alcohol was involved " it would be more harm than good to report this to the police." " You'll just end up spending a year or more in court reliving the experience, and you likely won't get anything from it"

Turning off the lights and putting on the movie Speed, she retreated to the living room where she completely forgot about us. How the event came about is a mystery to me, but the four boys eventually ran out of things to occupy them and decided to experiment with me. Some older and some younger than me, they pinned me down, removed their and my underwear and simulated a gang rape.

This is my story –of a 13-year-old victim who reported to the police in 1956. Ancient history? Perhaps, but it may give some insight into why victims don't report and the surreal experience of doing so. That said, I firmly believe that victims should speak out and identify themselves. It is not their shame! Not publishing names "in order to protect the victim" implies that somehow it is the victim's shame. Rapists are the ones who deserve to be identified and shamed.

Having a “friend” turn into an aggressive monster forcing you to do incredibly intimate things while you beg him not to is terrifying. When I woke up, I noticed the clothes I had been wearing were on the floor and I burst into tears because I knew that I didn’t wake up from a nightmare I could forget, instead I woke up to a horrible reality.

The room is dark and cool, it smells like hot metal and the air is dry.</br>
A lullaby of ominous whispers consumes my subconscious, if I try to eavesdrop they fall silent.</br>
Slivers of lavender light dance on sharp edges of images you don't want in your head.</br>
Images you couldn't, shouldn't, don't imagine.</br>

The first time I was raped I was 16 years old. The night exists in a series of flash-bulb images that I can neither piece together nor erase from my memory, despite years of trying. I’m still not sure if it was my fault, even though I know it wasn’t.

I don’t think about it very often anymore, but every few years I revisit the spiral of shame, and guilt.

The When You're Ready Project is a community for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories and have their voices heard, finding strength in one another. When you're ready to share your story, we will be here.